Penney Peirce is a respected clairvoyant empath, visionary, author, and popular lecturer and trainer. For many years, she has taught and counseled thousands of people internationally, in all walks of life. She is one of the early pioneers in the intuition development movement, specializing in expanded perception, inner energy dynamics, dreamwork, and transformation. She helps leaders, professionals, artists, and those on a spiritual path discover the hidden dynamics of what makes for true success.
Please share a bit of your background with us, did you always know you had an intuitive gift?
My inner life was always active, but my outer life kept shifting constantly as well. My family moved around the country every two years, following my trouble-shooting management consultant father, who worked for a large corporation. I’ve lived on the East coast, West coast, and all points between—in New York City, on the North Shore of Chicago, and on a farm in Kansas where I briefly attended one of the last one-room country schools. Living in so many environments helped me understand people more than any psychology course ever did.
I always asked Why? and never felt satisfied with superficial answers. I guess I’ve been a spiritual detective all my life—looking below the surface for the hidden dynamics of life, creativity, personal growth, relationships, and identity. When I was young, I didn’t believe that germs made people sick, or that drugs and surgery were the only solutions for disease. I thought there must be deeper causes underneath those pesky germs.
For years—even as a small child—I wouldn’t say the word “God” because I didn’t know what it meant. I couldn’t believe God was an old man with a white beard on a throne in the sky. I mused about why wars were fought over religion, and decided I would find the core truths that were present in every religion—and THAT would be what I would “believe”! My mother felt she had had previous lives, which made perfect sense to me. My father was the son of a Baptist minister, and had been forced to go to church until he felt suffocated by it. So early on, he told my mother, “Let the girl decide for herself about God.”
I grew up with a strong connection to nature and animals. As a child I communicated with my pets (dogs, cats, lizards, horses, mice, fish, sheep, and goats) telepathically, and lived for many years in a country setting where I was befriended by old farmers and horse people. I spent hours alone looking out from bluffs, hilltops, and tree branches, or cozied up next to streams, or in temple-like spaces in the woods. At the same time I was enthralled with art. I drew endlessly and had inexplicable urges to write poems. I’ve kept a journal since I was seven and won a National Scholastic Magazine writing award in junior high. About the same time a friend and I started a local newspaper for our community.
I began remembering my dreams and talking about them quite early, a habit that continues today. When I was thirteen I woke from a dream about 3 am, got up, went to my desk, drew a diagram of the “space-time continuum,” and wrote a detailed explanation of how the drawing explained reincarnation, psychic ability, and time travel. Then I went back to bed. In the morning, I was flabbergasted. This was the first of many graphic “teaching diagrams” that have poured through me—and many of them are now in my books.
What inspired you to continue this path professionally?
After studying and reading voraciously for a number of years, I was laid off from my job as an art director in a corporate downsizing. I maintained a freelance graphic design business for several years to fill in the financial gaps, but I also realized I could make a living teaching metaphysical classes and doing readings. I simply let people know, and there was a natural flow that brought enough clients to my door to get the new career rolling. Eventually the work as a spiritual counselor and teacher took over and I was able to make my entire living from that.
I worked closely for four years as business manager for, and co-presenter with, trance medium Kevin Ryerson, who gained recognition through his connection with actress Shirley MacLaine. I became affiliated with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove’s Intuition Network and The Center for the Study of Conscious Evolution, which included the founders of Findhorn, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Susan Campbell, and other leading edge thinkers.
I then joined the staff of The Center for Applied Intuition, founded by Dr. William Kautz, a scientist from SRI International, who developed a technique called intuitive consensus to use intuitives for scientific research. It was through this organization that I first traveled to Japan to teach and counsel, a connection that continued for over twenty years.
This was a period when I felt I was recognizing and remembering old knowledge I’d had in previous lives, honing my consciousness skills once again, and synthesizing a comprehensive worldview—one that would apply to the challenges of today. I learned a tremendous amount from doing tens of thousands of “life readings” for people around the world—and everything confirmed the true sanity of the soul, the reality of reincarnation, and the compassionate nature of the Divine.
What do you love most about your profession?
I enjoy working deeply with other people at a soul-to-soul level and dealing with the real issues of life. I enjoy the exchange that occurs at this level, which I experience as pure, simple, and sincere. I am always surprised and entertained by the creative ways people live their lives, and by how much people know in their deeper selves. That surprise factor keeps me humble and open. I also love teaching and making complex metaphysical ideas real and practical for people. There’s something about the way an abstract idea suddenly translates into a diagram, an example, or a larger understanding that thrills me—it’s like magic, especially when the explanation or description strikes a chord in the other person.
What is the most challenging part?
I find that some people are still uncomfortable—skeptical, judgmental, or fearful—when they learn I work with intuition. They might have preconceived ideas about how intuition is “supposed to” look and function, or they think I’ll see some terrible hidden secret and judge them for it, or that I’ll save them or create a miraculous result and they won’t have to do anything. Of course, I only see what the other person’s soul shows me at that moment, and to me, it’s all positive, all in service to evolution. Making this subject palatable, popular, and normal is a big part of what I do, yet wouldn’t it be great if we could all just get on with USING intuition productively?
How do your readings usually come to you? Are they clear images or do you need help in interpreting them?
I used to be more visual. Over the years I shifted to auditory, then tactile modes, and now I receive impressions of abstract patterns of knowledge all at once over my entire body. I feel the other person’s life as though it’s my own—even physical symptoms or sensory emphases like acute hearing or smell. Then I somehow decode and describe this information, and the process involved, as articulately as I can. This has caused me to become empathic; I call it conscious communion. When I finish a session I come back to my own body and persona, and forget what I’ve been merged with—I just leave it out there.
You have authored ten books, including Transparency, Leap of Perception and Frequency. What can readers expect from your writing?
I was one of the early pioneers in the intuition development movement, my topics revolve around the power of skillful perception and making transformation easier. The content of my writing comes from me living and breathing the insights and lessons, and from the wisdom that emerges spontaneously when I counsel and teach. My books are often the first big books on a topic and become relied-upon guides and reference books—people tell me they keep them next to their bed or have read them two or three times.
Whether it’s intuition development, understanding dreams and visions, managing our energy, connecting the imaginal realm with physical results, shifting out of old thinking patterns, or helping us have the courage to become transparent, I am dedicated to making the earthy stuff sacred and inspirational.
